Temple High School trainer honored for saving student's life.

TEMPLE - An athletic trainer at Temple High School received a prestigious award from the Southwest Athletic Training Association for saving a kid’s life.

It all stems from an incident on the track during football workouts in March 2016.

Windee Skrabanek in her 12th year as the athletic trainer as Temple High School. She puts her students first, and this award is the result of that.

“It’s just a good recognition for our profession, why we do what we do,” Skrabanek said. “I’ve stressed that here, it’s not an ‘I’ thing, it’s a ‘we’ thing.”

Skrabanek has spent 12 of her 15 years as an athletic trainer at Temple High School.

In July, she was one of three trainers to receive the 2017 Excellence in Athletic Training award. It is a highlight of a career which has seen a few big injuries, but nothing like what the injury which led to her award.

“Just to have him back, seeing him every day, seeing him smile, that’s the real reward,” she said.

De'aveun Bnks

De’aveun Banks was running sprints during a workout in Temple’s Wildcat Stadium

“The muscles around my heart, they weren’t the same size and that caused me to collapse and that was pretty much it,” Banks said.

When Banks collapsed, a student came running into Skarabanek’s office so she and another trainer reacted.

“I[Skrabanek] just remember looking at him and being like, ‘I don’t feel nothing.’ And he’s like, ‘me neither.”

She revived Banks who was then taken to the hospital and he received a diagnosis that would end his athletic career.

“I had to think about what they were saying and how to process it and just take it one day at a time,” Banks said.

Myocarditis is inflammation and damage to the tissue around the hart believed to cause between five and 20 percent of sudden death in young adults.

“I don’t know how to put it in words, actually. Just grateful.” Banks said. “I’m grateful she was there to save me when she was and for everyone who helped.”

While the glass trophy sitting is Windee Skrabanek’s office is nice, it is not the biggest reward from that March day.

“I’ve realized now, after having a child of my own, there’s different types of love, you know, showing them compassion and showing them love,” she said.

Banks can’t play anymore, but he shows up to every practice and game and is right there with Skrabanek.

He said he’ls looking at options for college and is interested in possibly studying psychology.